


from the faun forever gone

by phwaa



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-26
Updated: 2015-01-26
Packaged: 2018-03-09 05:45:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3238511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phwaa/pseuds/phwaa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Holding firm and falling fast, Samantha Groves dies against the stairwell on the fifth floor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	from the faun forever gone

 

 

 

FROM THE FAUN FOREVER GONE

(Bon Iver; Towers)

 

 

 

Holding firm and falling fast, Samantha Groves dies against the stairwell on the fifth floor

It’s undesired, crossed off and closed down. The clock ticks back and she’s standing outside again, leaning heavily against the flickering lamppost. There are so many options stricken off. The running list is short and Root wonders if she’ll ever get her back, if the odds will ever change or when she’ll next make it to the single room at the end of the corridor.

 

\--

 

Briefly, she remembers watching a girl slip away from a library parking lot. Already bullied into silence, she’d tripped along the road with a trail of mud following in her path. Samantha had rang, eventually, and told the police what she’d seen. There had been no justice there.

Briefly, she remembers watching a woman fall down from a broken elevator. Clinging to the metal gate hadn't brought her closer, hadn't stopped the array of bullets or the falling body. Screaming over and over, louder and louder, had done nothing to silence the collapse.

It’s brief. Think again, again, again. She opens her eyes and forgets.

 

\--

 

She makes it to the room, sometimes, stumbles through the threshold and almost always loses her footing. With no cameras in the building and the last sighting of her bleeding out in the basement of the banks, she looks perfect. Of course, she recognizes Root instantly. Out of breath and breathless, shaky and steady, warm but so cold. She’s a cluster of contradictions around Sameen Shaw.

Dropping a gun to the floor (her legs want to follow), she swallows and always, always says, “You’re alive.”

Root waits. There would've been a snarky comment, a sarcastic splutter and the inability to accept any emotions. But that was a long time ago. Instead, Shaw nods and blinks. “Got a plan to keep us that way?” She asks, sometimes.

(“I've been waiting,” Root says, very occasionally. “I've been waiting for this for so long.”)

She looks the same, always, and Root can’t breathe.

(She forgets, always, that this isn't the real Shaw. This isn't her Shaw.)

And Root dies, always, in an empty room with a girl that disappeared in a puddle of red.

 

\--

 

Standing on the sidewalk with another bullet ready to blow, she watches her mark fall against his car door. Her ear buzzes with static, tries to drag her away and under. Root closes her eyes, clenches her fist and pulls the trigger again. There’s another option, another scenario, another move that could take her far away from here. Perhaps to Harold and Reese and the train wreck. She’d take her to a place where Root’s new approach would be criticized and stopped and maybe ever so quietly justified.

Root slides her pistol down against her back and turns on her heels before anyone can investigate. She’d left a gun down in a corridor with a fallen asset and couldn't pick up another, couldn't bring herself to replace it. Regardless, she still thinks she’s missing something (she’s missing everything). Her pants feel loose and lacking with only one barrel scraping against her skin.

She trips against the tarmac and waits for the static to pass, the options to erase and flicker in a flash. The Machine can’t help it, can’t stop the simulations webbing out into her head. Samaritan has left her God bruised and broken and fighting a virus invented to kill.

 

\--

 

She goes back to that day. That scenario, that option, that corridor. She clings, again, to the metal railings and watches the bullets fly and fall.

She’s dragged away again, again, again. The doors close and the shot fires and her eyes open.

She goes back to that day, sometimes, and wakes up with a headache.

 

\--

 

The safety is on, but she wiggles her gun anyway and watches the small man jolt.

“I’m not the bad guy.” He says, swallowing half his tongue and gurgling a hiccup. “I was just following orders.”

Root rolls her eyes and pouts, spending half a minute to drag her thumb across his dripping forehead. Biting the corner of her lip, she almost feels bad for the guy. She almost wants to chalk him up as another one of Samaritan’s loyal but ever so dim soldiers. “Sweetie,” she drawls, drying her finger on his shoulder pad. “You’re helping the wrong God and now you have to pay.”

The man sniffs and tries for a sentence one too many times before actually making a sound. “I’ll leave. I can work for you, I swear. I can help you and you know it.”

His lack of loyalty and honor and respect forces her forward. His number appeared and it’s time to move on to the next. Pursing her lips, she whispers, “I’m afraid She’s not hiring right now,” before flicking the safety off.

He blinks and something inside him changes. In his last moments, he gets to be the monster Samaritan so proudly reared. “I wanted them to kill her.” He snarls, seconds before she presses the trigger.

 

\--

 

She makes it to the seventh floor, slides along the wall with her hand grazing the trigger. She’s so close. A step, a skip, a reach. She’ll shoot the two men she knows are guarding the door, hands in pockets and packets of chips, and kick open the door and finally, finally, make it.

There’s a bullet in her back before she can round the corner. She’d forgotten to kill the group on the second floor. She’s missed a piece in the puzzle and now she’s gasping and laughing and turning to stare at the cluster of operatives filing out of the elevator.

“Nice to see you again, boys.” Root wheezes. “Impeccable timing, as always.”

It’s not satisfactory, the objective failed and the option is discarded. She’s gripping the lamppost and staring at the building again in seconds.

 

\--

 

Option 833,333 left a puddle of blood spilled against the white tiled corridor.

Root wonders how she ever let herself get into a situation with only a 2.07% chance of survival. She wonders how she ever let this happen.

(She’d dreamt of an outcome where she’d fallen to the floor with an axe in hand. She’d awoken wondering when She’d become so weak She couldn't control the glitches. Root had woken wondering when her God would break.)

 

\--

 

Leaning against a brick wall with her lips twisted in a smirk, it happens again.

There’s a running list, a chosen option and then she’s standing beside the brick wall again and smirking at Harold, limping ever so slowly over towards her.

“Miss Groves.” He says, fiddling with the plastic that frames his face. “She’s sent you to spy on me, I suppose.”

Root smiles and tilts her head. “Oh, Harry.” She sings, “You know how She loves Her games.”

“I didn't think we’d be meeting again so soon.” Harold murmurs, gesturing to the pavement on their left. They start walking in step and Root turns with a raised eyebrow. “She gives you your own numbers now, doesn't She?”

Her lips curl and her fingers twitch with irritation. The moment passes and she says “yes,” followed by “you know why that is, Harold.”

“You’re an assassin.” He nods. “She gives you the numbers-”

“Don’t be naive, Harry.” Root stops and watches Harold come to a halt two steps ahead. “I’m the only one She can trust to take the necessary precautions."

Harold looks calm, takes a step forward and manages to whisper, “Not even Miss Shaw would-” before there’s a shot and he slumps forward a little before falling toward the floor.

She looks around frantically, grappling for Harold’s shoulders. There’s static in her ear before she sees her, blonde hair and black suit. Raised gun and firm step. One of Samaritan’s toy soldiers, ever the picture of composure, striding forward and passing the few running individuals caught between them. Root’s managed to pull Harold behind a stray car, pushing him against the door and searching for a nearby camera.

“Come on,” she’s demanding, “come on, come on, come on.”

She’s wrestling for her gun, reaching for Harold’s bleeding stomach and desperately seeking a camera when everything slows again. The Machine takes over, static rings in her working ear and an option is crossed off the running list. Undesired outcome.

It occurs to her, then, that this is why She brought Root here. To drag her back. There’s a clock ticking backwards as she’s still halfway to reaching Harold’s stomach. Another option is selected and before she knows it, faster than a blink, she’s leaning against a brick wall and smirking at the approaching man.

Ever since the war with Samaritan, Root has been exposed to the delicate and precise method of choosing the right route, the safest options, the best scenario available. Usually, she can choose when to shut it off, but her Machine is breaking.

“Miss Groves.” He says, fiddling with the plastic that frames his face. “She’s sent you to spy on me, I suppose.”

They turn right, Samaritan finds them, shoots Root when she jumps in front of Harold and she’s standing in front of the brick wall again.

“Miss Groves.” He says, again and again and again.

“Miss Groves.” He says, until she’s dragging him into a passing car and pulling him down to the train and awaiting dog.

 

\--                                                      

 

Five months of searching for Samaritan and Greer and Martine and her. Five months of relentless gunfire and sleepless nights and nothing. They’d uncovered nothing but an empty warehouse and a black coat they’d burnt before they could think about the woman it used to belong to.

Root had remembered losing a fourteen year old that could never quite get to Oregon. She’d remembered organizing her first murder and realizing killing people was easier than saving them. The Machine only ever seemed to send her numbers belonging to Samaritan nowadays.

(She remembers watching a body fall to the floor and a gun descending. She remembers the doors closing and the lift rising. She remembers a kiss and a scream and a gun shot. She remembers-)

“We haven’t stopped looking for her, you know?” Reese says, stepping up behind her.

Root turns and smiles. “We both know where she is, John.” Turning back to the picture of a very stoic looking woman staring back, she says, “you keep her watching over you all.” It kills her, something snaps somewhere and she can’t breathe for a few seconds. “How dysfunctional of you all."

(It’d taken Reese two months to become bitter. “How does it feel,” he’d muttered as he’d pocketed a handful of bullets, “to know your God couldn't save her?”)

“Everyone needs someone to watch over them.” He nods, turning away and walking the length of the train

She leaves ten minutes later and stares at the nearest camera.

“Is this your way of making me human again?” She asks, listening to the silence in her ear. “How ironic.”

 

\--

 

A sociopath and a reformed killer for hire. It would've been perfect.

 

\--

 

She falls into an empty room and wants to be sick.

“Why isn't she here?” She asks, searching the corners, rubbing her palm to her head. “Where is she? Where’s Sameen?”

She’s died hundreds of times, bled out on the third, fourth, fifth floor. But this is by far the worst scenario.

Shaw is in this building, Root knows it, no matter how unsure The Machine is.

This isn't a valid option, Root thinks, before pushing a bullet into her temple and waking up under the fading light of a lamppost.

 

\--

 

She kills three numbers in four days and, when she drags her fourth into a dark alley and pushes a bullet through his head, wonders why she ever organized killings when it feels so good to execute them. In her current state, Root has no doubt that The Machine has a better moral compass than her. Maybe it’s a sign, maybe she should reevaluate her method. 

Maybe she’s becoming the biggest monster of them all. (Root thinks Samantha Groves will always be the biggest casualty of war.)

 

\--

 

Only once does she stumble through the metal door and find exactly what she wants but not at all. Sameen Shaw is standing in front of her with a smug smirk and a gun raised high.

(She’s missed this image so much, she thinks she’s dreaming.)

Shaw’s face drops momentarily and picks up again. Almost like a glitch, she fidgets until her head is shaking and her eyes are squeezed shut.

Root isn't sure what’s going on, so she steps forward and says, “Sameen-” before Shaw is up again with a frown, barrel facing in front and aimed toward Root’s chest.

“Don’t, Root. I-” She’s twitching again and her finger hovers over the trigger. “You need to leave.”

Root steps forward again, shaking her head in endless disbelief. (This can’t be happening, she’s here to save her. She’s here to bring her home.) “What’s happening?” Root whispers, pressing a finger to her ear and needing answers. “Sameen, what are you doing? I’m here to save you.”

Shaw’s face is convulsing in pain, gun wobbling and knuckles crunching. “Root, leave. You might not get a second chance.”

Drunk on reminiscence, she can hardly stand. Root doesn't know what to do, for maybe the third time in her life. She’s about to die at the hands of the only woman she’s ever really needed, and yet she can’t quite move her feet. There’s static, she’s pleading for another option.

Reaching out to calm Shaw’s contorted face, to trace her cheekbones and pull a delicate finger across her jaw, Root whispers, “second chances are overrated, Sameen.” She feels sick the moment the words pass her lips, the moment the trigger is pulled, the moment her body falls loose against Shaw’s feet and all she sees is darkness.

 

\--

 

Harold finds her on a park bench and blinks ahead for five minutes before speaking.

“I know what you’re doing, Miss Groves.” He says, sniffing against the cold air. It’s been snowing for days and Harold pulls his gloves out from his left pocket. “She wants me to tell you to stop.”

Root blinks and looks down before plastering a smile against her cheeks. “ _She_ ,” Root stresses, glancing at the camera flashing against the gates, “was the one who took me there. She took me to that building and showed me the statistics and possibilities.”

“The Machine is not designed to-”

“Samaritan left Her bleeding, Harry.” She snaps, coughs and adopts a sad smile. “I can see everything She does, every decision She can’t make, every scenario available.”

“That can’t be healthy.”

“She’s in there, and she’s waiting for me to-”

“It’s not real.” Harold almost looks scared. “We’re not wired like The Machine is, Miss Groves. You won’t survive all that information in your head.”

“Sameen is in that building, Harold.” Shrugging, Root stands and turns. “I can get her back.”

“She’ll end up killing you, you know.” He says, brushing at the snow settling on his knees.

Root can’t help but smile, turn her head to the side and bite her bottom lip. “Which one?”

Harold doesn't blink. Doesn't swallow, whispers, “both” and watches her walk away.

 

\--

 

The statistics show, clearly, that she’ll never make it out of that building alive. Shaw finds her in the computer lab on the third floor, choking on blood and sick, spitting against the carpet. Root hasn't seen her out of that room before, and she thinks The Machine is trying to send a message.

“Sameen.” She manages to choke, lying on the floor and reaching across the room. “How did you-”

“This will kill you, Root.” She says, kneeling down and pushing Root’s arm back to her side. Operatives are filling the room, guns raised and fingers hovering. “You’ll never make it out of here alive.”

Distantly, she hears a shot and moments later feels it drive through her shoulder. Static starts, options crossed.

“I might not be alive, Root.” Shaw is saying, looking from Samaritan’s agents and back to her. “You’re killing yourself over and over, and I might not even be alive.”

Another shot and the world is starting to disappear and slow. Shaw’s face is pixelated.

The pain is excruciating, but she knows it’ll be over soon. She’ll be standing against a lamppost and watching a building she’s never actually stepped foot in. She’ll be back to a world without Sameen Shaw. “I can’t give you up.” She manages, through the cracks, through the silence. “Not yet.”

(Not ever, she thinks briefly, before she’s swept up.)

 

\--

 

Harold Finch, as always, is right.

Being privy to the ins and outs of The Machine is taking its toll. Walking down the street, she gets flickers of the people they all used to be. She sees Harold’s first limp in a blink, and Reese’s first number. She sees Shaw dying against the traffic lights, dying against a big red button in a corridor washed white.

She trips, stands, falls and clings to a passing bench.

Maybe this will kill her before Samaritan gets the chance.

 

\--

 

“I’m going to save you.” She says once, breathing hard and heavy with a bullet trapped in her side. She paints her name in blood across Shaw’s cheek and watches as it smudges to the edge of her chin 

“Okay.” Shaw nods, looking down and away, looking at the open wound and the open door. “Okay, maybe I’ll let you.”

Root bleeds out against the white tiles, and she almost expects to see a rising elevator in the distance. Root bleeds out with the sound of static in her ear and one less opportunity on her list. She bleeds out and Shaw looks the same always, always.

 

\--

 

She sees Bear before the suit. 

Reese stands next to her, looks up at the building and finally turns to acknowledge her with a nod. “This the building, then?”

“The very one.” Root purses her lips and watches Bear sidle to her side. “There are no cameras in the building, for obvious reasons, so everything in the simulations are educated guesses at best.”

There’s a grunt of frustration and John Reese, the phony cynic, pretends it isn't enough. “What do we actually have to go on, Root?”

She taps her fingers against the lamppost. “Schematics, diagrams, heat sensors and not to mention,” Root looks around them, nodding her head in every direction, “the cameras surrounding the building.”

“Right then.” Reese nods, looking from Bear to Root and reaching to grab the lamppost. “Let’s see if we can save our damsel in distress.”

(She dies in a cluster of Samaritan operatives watching Reese fall through a glass window.)

“How’d it go?” He asks, only just gripping the metal next to him. It’s been less than seconds, really, and Root wants to shut her brain off for five minutes but instead shakes her head and tries again.

 

\--

 

When she’s seen too many brunettes, too many scowls, too many people that look right but _wrong_ (before Samaritan and Greer and the ever so brief kiss, Root would look out for Shaw every day, skip up behind her and pretend their missions overlapped), she finds herself at the lamppost. Over and over and over. Again and again and again. She’ll bleed out against a girl she thought she’d never see again.

Root gets them both to the third floor. Without any real knowledge of Shaw’s condition, The Machine can’t justify giving her a gun, so Root is doing it all by herself. This scenario is the best she’s had yet.

“I have to say,” Shaw whispers, pressing herself flat against the wall and out of the way. She points to Root’s sole gun. “I’m really missing the twins.”

Root takes a second to raise her brow and push for a smirk, before Shaw can scoff and flush the lightest shade she’ll allow.

“I should've seen that.” She says, shaking her head. “I mean the one gun thing. It’s kinda weird to see you so defenseless.”

“I’m not defenseless.” Root hums, dragging the barrel across Shaw’s jaw. “I have you, don’t I?”

Shaw pushes Root’s arm away. “You best be talking to the pistol.” She huffs. “You can’t ban me from using weapons and then joke about it.”

Root can’t help but smile. “Sameen-”

The door at the end of the corridor is kicked open and the sound of footsteps clatters against the tiles. Root doesn't think about it, they've gotten this far and she’ll get them further. Stepping out from the corner, she manages to fire three shots down the corridor and counts six Samaritan agents.

Ordering a harsh “stay,” in Shaw’s general direction, she slides past the wall and behind a cabinet with a better vantage point. She manages to poke out and shoot two others, and ducks back in before their bullets hit more than just the wall behind her. Picking them off one by one is easy then, as they each crawl and attempt to avenge the other.

One more obstacle overcome, and Option 8,614 is looking like a winner. That is until she rounds back to the corner she’d left Shaw and can only shoot the guy pressing a knife into her side in time to see Shaw slump down against the wall.

(It’s happening again, again, again.)

“Bit too late to the party there, Root.” Shaw pants, holding her hand to her side and squinting at the blood. She looks up at Root’s horrified expression. “Déjà vu?”

Falling to her knees and shuffling closer, Root looks around in sheer panic. (She feels at a loss with no camera to glare at.) “This isn't it.” She says, reaching for Shaw’s bloody side and the discarded knife laying by her leg. “Choose another. This isn't the right option, take me back.”

When she looks back to the woman next to her, Shaw finally, finally, finally doesn't look the same. Her cheeks are drained and her eyes are droopy. She’s just staring, like she’s seen the past attempts, like she’s lived through Root’s endless deaths and last breaths. Sameen Shaw looks almost as tragic as Samantha Groves.

“If you were going to die again,” Root whispers, just before the static starts. “You could've kissed me goodbye.”

Shaw manages an eye roll and a raspy grunt and Root has to watch her die all over again. It’s not desired, it’s not desired, it’s not desired. Shaw’s falling against Root's knees, clutching the fabric against her stomach and curling around her thighs.

(Shaw isn't supposed to die. Root can handle the pain and loss of bleeding out against the stairwell again and again, but she can’t lose Shaw.)

Root can’t breathe. Clawing at Shaw’s cold skin, she thinks she’ll die anyway, red and raw and ruined. Root closes her eyes and sees Shaw falling against the wall, painting a trail of blood in her descent.

When she opens them, she’s half tripping against a lamppost, falling to the floor and clutching at her kneecaps.

(Breathe, breathe, breathe and be fine.)

 

\--

 

Shooting a bullet at the lock, she kicks open the door and doesn't spare a second to appreciate Shaw’s shock. Instead, she drives forward and pushes her against the nearest wall, kissing Shaw’s bottom lip as she finishes a gasp.

Once upon a time, Root would've been pushed away, kicked in the shin and made to canvas the area. Now, Shaw just pushes back, pulls Root’s jacket and leans into Root’s mouth. It doesn't take long for the tears to come, and Root would be embarrassed if she hadn't just watched this woman die in front of her. She sniffles and stops, pulls away and watches Shaw frown at the tracks down Root’s cheeks.

“Really?” She rolls her eyes, tugs her thumb against Root’s cheek in a rough gesture. “That’s not needed.”

Root almost wants to explain, but instead she pushes her back against the wall and takes advantage of Shaw’s grunt, pressing her tongue against her upper teeth and dragging it until she can follow the movement with her mouth. Shaw grunts again, then, but it’s softer and she’s running her hand down Root’s neck and dragging a nail against her skin.

“Well,” Shaw mutters as Root presses her pelvis closer and finds herself just breathing into Shaw’s neck. “This is a much better goodbye.”

It’s said so casually, clumsy and quick, and Root can’t help but steady herself against the wall, pulling away and looking down. “This isn't goodbye.”

When Shaw looks up, her eyes are lost, her cheeks are flushed and her mouth is slightly ajar. When Root leans forward and pushes their mouths together, she almost doesn't feel the bullet in her back. When Shaw holds her up with arms hooked around her shoulders, the static is immediate and overwhelming.

Looking up into the flickering light, she’s never wanted to break a lamppost more in her life.

 

-

 

(Remember, remember, remember.) 

She’d made it to Oregon for a week and called herself Hanna, watching as it became the only name on the winner’s board. She’d taken out every copy of  _Flowers for Algernon_ and left a trail of pages from Trent Russell’s truck to his front door.

The static starts, jolts her up and away. Her head twitches and she’s almost made it to a bench before the next glitch.

(Remember, remember, remember.)

She’d pushed Sameen Shaw against the train door exactly seven minutes after Finch had stumbled out of the subway. It was expected, always expected, and Shaw hadn't tried to hide the hiss after Root had bitten through her lip for the second time in one night. Always so rough, Sameen Shaw had left infected vials rolling against the metal table top with a pair of used rubber gloves.

Root thinks about the broken machine webbing in and across her head and wonders what will kill her first.

(Sometimes she wonders what there’s left to kill.)

 

\--

 

(She remembers, sometimes, that this isn't her Shaw. She forgets, sometimes, that it’s not.)

“Tell me,” Root whispers, noting only briefly the many operatives closing in. Sameen Shaw doesn't look fazed. “Tell me how to save you.”

There’s wonder in Shaw’s eyes, as fast as the hitch in her breath. “Wow.” She murmurs, slumping to her side slightly. “The almighty Root and her God asking for help?”

Root hears a door slam closed somewhere in the distance. “I don’t know if I’ll ever get you out of here.”

“You came close.” Shaw says.

She takes a moment. Root traces, with her eyes and very rarely her fingers, the dark skin below Shaw’s eyes and the curve of her cheeks. She breathes steady and slow and waits for the inevitable. Maybe one day this woman will leave this building, but Root fears her own exit is fated feet first.

“Sam-” She manages, just before the bullets rain in.

 

\--

 

A sense of mislead loyalty and wavering obligation forces her down the stairs, pushes her through the train doors and next to the tiny man.

“I wasn't expecting your company, Miss Groves.” Harold says, eyes remaining on the screens in front. After another three clicks he turns to look up for only half a minute. “I assume you’re here for a favor.”

Root wants to scoff, instead she just smiles. “You think so little of me, Harry.” He raises a brow, but she carries on regardless. “I just wanted to check in on my favorite duo.”

“We’re a little busy at the minute, but I’m sure there’s a dog wandering about that you can entertain instead.” He says, just as Fusco’s voice crackles through the speakers.

“Your henchman gonna leave me stranded or what?” There’s shouting in the background and Root is mildly interested in what their mission is, who their most recent number is and their plan of escape. 

She leans forward against the desk, takes a minute to scan the camera angles above as Harold stutters an excuse. Sometimes she aches for old times, plays with the idea of coming back and once again being a part of an unstoppable team. Except they were stopped. (Sometimes she wonders if she could come back without her.)

“Hi Lionel.” She sings and lets a grin spread across her cheeks at his disinterested grunt. “I hope you've missed me.”

“Great.” His exasperation is unmistakable and unabashed. “Fruitloops is all we need.”

There’s a clatter on the other end and Reese’s voice in the background. “Don’t be like that.” She says, drumming her fingers against the table top, nearing Harold and his precious keyboard.

“You know you’re making my job harder.” Fusco’s favorite thing has always been to grumble. (Fleetingly, it reminds her of someone.) “I’m assuming you’re the treasure that’s leaving all the gifts around the city. All gagged and dead with a pretty little bow.”

Root smiles. “Well,” she whispers. “Telling you would ruin the fun.”

(She wonders, always, how they've managed to move past this. Move past her.)

 

\--

 

She’s about to leave when the picture catches her eye. Turn away, away, away. (She doesn't belong here.) Root doesn't realize she’s staring until Harold coughs and she hears the squeak of his turning chair.

“It’s not a memorial.” Harold says, sounding only slightly guilty. “It’s not even to remind us of what we've lost. Rather, what we’ll get back eventually, if you like.”

Root nods, but still can’t tear her eyes away. “How can you look at her every day, Harold, and not want to save her?”

There’s shuffling behind her and Root pictures him struggling to stand and hobble over. “Your method is dangerous, Miss Groves. Humans are not machines. I have urged you to stop this-”

“I can’t do that.”

“There is no way of knowing if she’s in that building.”

“I know it.” She affirms, spinning around. “I know she’s in that building, I know I can get her back.” Harold swallows and looks away. “I just need to find the right option, if I can work out how to-”

“Miss Groves, I think you know you won’t make it out alive.” He says it so sternly, there’s a sudden air of finality and Root starts to feel sick. “I think you know She will kill you if Samaritan doesn't do it first. You’re on a destructive path, but you knew all along there would be losses.” He takes in a sharp, fast breath as the realization sets in between them. “You said it yourself.”

Root wants to walk, maybe run, away from here. “You don’t think she’s alive.” She says, and watches Harold blink back.

“That’s not-”

“You say you’ll get her back eventually, but you have no intention of actually going through with it. You don’t think she’s in that building because you think she’s dead.”

(Turn away, away, away. She doesn't belong here.)

Harold shakes his head. “Miss Groves-”

“I’ll bring her back, Harry. I’ll bring her back and you’ll see.”

With tired eyes, hands, legs, heart, she walks away and out. Drowns in the people outside and pretends she’s not searching, searching, searching for a missing girl.

 

\--

 

Clasping tightly onto her fingers (Shaw would've pushed her away already if this was under normal circumstances), Root manages to pull Shaw into the main lobby, twisting her own body as if she were a human shield. She counts in her head one, two, three bullets left. Four armed Samaritan agents stalking forward. Damn.

She’s gotten this far, had fallen into a computer lab on the third floor and was told to sit for half an hour and that somehow made a difference. That small change has pushed her through to this moment, with a beating, broken but alive Shaw fumbling by her side. The Machine is specific about not allowing Shaw to fight, holster a weapon or even push through a fist. They’re so uncertain of her real condition (or if she’s even here, Root hears with contempt) that all she can become is dead weight that is thankfully actually alive.

“When I let go,” Root whispers, turning halfheartedly to her right, breath heavy against Shaw’s cheek. “You need to run, there’ll be a car waiting.” (The Machine has never watched Root get this far, has never made this arrangement until now.)

Sameen Shaw, the great believer in everything but the rules, bites her lip and shrugs.

“Sameen, I mean it.” She says, as stern as she can manage, though her head is still staring at the corner with bobbing heads and Samaritan targets. “You need to trust me, if only this once.”

There’s a grunt and a reluctant, “sure, Root, treat me like a damsel in distress” before her fingers are released and Shaw is running to the glass doors behind and Root is gliding forward with her pistol balanced. She’s done this before, likens it to God mode only with a God stricken with glitches, and manages to hit the first guy square in the chest. She listens as he slumps down, a huff of air echoing along the walls as another cocky agent decides to come prancing out and falls against the marble almost immediately with a shot to the cheek.

Two down and two to go with one bullet left. Root almost gasps as she dodges the oncoming shots, closing her left eye as she walks closer, closer, closer and pummels a bullet into the agent’s side as he hides against the nearest wall. The last agent, playing nervously with his radio and hearing nothing but static, stands up and wobbles his gun high. Too high, Root thinks, but only manages to avoid three shots until she’s hit in the gut.

Breathe, breathe, breathe. Her hands are covered in blood as she splays her palms around the hole in her side. Breathe, breathe, breathe. She ducks and twists away from what seems like a never-ending rain of bullets, and jogs forward a little (her limp resembles that of Harold’s, clutching clumsily to her side) as the boy in the Samaritan suit fiddles with his magazine.

Dropping her gun, she slips close enough to swipe his feet under him, following suit with an ache deep in her chest and a puddle of blood forming below. The guy is squealing, dropping the gun and reaching. He manages to blow another bullet (she feels it like the loss of a girl across an elevator shaft), until she’s clawed it away and blown a bullet through his temple.

The realization hits only then, bleeding against marble and holding a slack hand against her wounds. Shaw is out, safe, alive and free. As Root turns her head, she sees a figure achingly familiar staring back through the glistening glass. A car behind her, a lamppost further on and a camera flashing on the fence beyond.

Mission complete, Root thinks, with hooded eyes and slightly parted lips. The Machine disagrees, as static rings in her ear and an option is crossed.

(Root will come back here, soon, and finally complete her mission the way it has played out.)

 

\--

 

She’s slightly nervous as she passes the building. Her neck is hot though her nose is red from the cold. The lamppost looks the same, standing tall and inconspicuous in the daylight. Tonight, she’ll come back here and won’t be anywhere else again.

“We have a new number.” A voice says, and Root turns slightly to acknowledge a grumpy looking Harold.

She pushes her hands into her pockets and sways, staring intently at the windows in front, wavering on the seventh floor. “Yes, Harold.” She says, mildly and feigning no interest. “She hasn't completely broken.”

Harold shakes his head, stumbling in front of her, and Root almost doesn't want to look down. She does, though, and recognizes the worry etched along his jaw.

“Miss Groves,” He wobbles a bit, swallows and carries on as informally as always. “You are our new number.”

She’s only briefly shocked.

“Who am I a threat to, do you think?” She asks, looking slightly smug. (Inside she might've cracked a little, might be bleeding where she knows she will tonight.)

He coughs to gain her attention and then pushes his glasses high on his nose. His eyelashes look crushed. “I fear you are a danger to yourself. Perhaps the victim and perpetrator all in one.”

Root blinks, swallows, breathes and sees herself fall against the marble floor across the street. She feels the bullets lodged in her side, her hand sliding smoothly against the moisture pooling around and under. She sees Sameen Shaw, looking alive and well on the other side of the glass doors. “Are you going to stop me?”

“I don’t think anyone can stop you.” Harold says, a sad lilt to his voice that quickly cracks and washes away.

“Are you going to help me?” She asks, instead.

He shakes his head, slow and steady. “I can’t say I believe in your logic, Miss Groves, and I daren’t send Mr Reese to his death on a whim.” There’s silence for a while, as she studies the building and he studies her. She doesn't know if this is a goodbye, but it’s hardly the one she’s dreamed of. “Please, Root.” He whispers, and she looks down at him at the name. “There are other ways. We can work together, all of us and The Machine. You’d only need to wait a little longer.”

Root blinks, swallows, breathes and sees Shaw fall against the marble floor across the street. “How long are you going to defer the inevitable, Harry? Until there’s no doubt that she’s dead?”

“Whatever you’re about to do,” Harold says, ignoring Root’s words. “It will not be worth it, to neither you nor her, if you don’t survive this endeavor.”

She shakes her head and steps back until she’s blocking the empty sidewalk. “It will be worth it, Harold.” He steps forward, but he lost her a while back and his grasp won’t carry. “You’ll see.”

 

\--

 

She crashes against her door-frame, tugs herself up against the wood and sees pixels following in her eye line. She’ll stop playing the scenarios, options, choices She so elegantly places before her. Root doesn't need them anymore, but The Machine is pulling her apart regardless.

Root always knew her mind wasn't comparable to a machine, she knew she couldn't actually live with these brilliant mechanisms and insights living within her. But she needed them. She needed to see the endless list of possibilities so she could save Shaw.

Perhaps this thing will kill her, perhaps her brain is splintering with the unjust reality mixed with the thousands of fantasies she’s seen play before her. Perhaps the greatest God to ever be created will rip her mind to shreds, but Root will complete her mission first.

She will save Sameen Shaw.

 

\--

 

It feels strange, actually stepping through the double glass doors, walking along the marble and playing out the puzzle pieces in real time. There’s static in her ear, She wants to drag her out and under and far, far away. Root is determined and already leaning over the desk, smiling sweetly and making small talk whist she presses a bullet into the two guards in front.

Root’s already started crossing off the many kills she’ll be making that night, and The Machine can do nothing but try to help as best She can. There are so many steps, and She's buzzing in her ear (operative on the right, up the stairs, left, operatives round the corner, three operatives down the corridor, faulty knee, broken arm) and Root is charging forward getting stronger and stronger.

Waiting on the third floor feels like forever. (Go back, go back, go back) Her heart is stuttering, her eyes are itching and her ear is twitching and buzzing as the seconds tick by. (What if she’s not there? What if this has all been for nothing?) Her fingers run along the length of her gun, flick through the bullets before pulling it back together.

She will save Sameen Shaw.

 

\--

 

Reaching the seventh floor has never been harder, she thinks, but she’s died so many times along this corridor that she can’t quite breathe when she makes it the metal door. She knows who’s inside. She’ll press a bullet to the lock and fly in. She’ll have less than three minutes for the greeting and no longer. They need to be off this floor before the alarm is triggered and they’re cornered.

(What if she’s not there? What if this has all been for nothing?)

Shaking her head, she pulls the trigger and kicks open the door. (She wants to close her eyes, to run away and pretend she saw nothing and everything. Pretend she saw a broken girl and an empty room.)

She hears it, then. There’s ringing in her ears, deafening silence and then this. Low and loud all at once, it rips her ears to shreds and she’s not sure if she can stand anymore.

It’s there again, her name ringing out along the walls.

“Root?”

(It’s not her, it’s not her, it’s not her.) Broken and bent and bleeding, Sameen Shaw hangs against the wall with shackles at her wrists and ankles. (In her simulations, Shaw had always looked perfect. Always, always, always standing in the room and waiting.) Her cheeks are blistered purple and her legs shake against her weight.

Root didn't prepare for this.

She says it again, Shaw murmuring her name. “Root?”

“Yes.” She croaks, stepping forward. Feet moving slow, and then faster until she’s standing in front of the woman she’s spent so long wanting and wishing and waiting for. “Look what they've done.” Root manages, hovering a hand over, but not quite touching, the broken skin stretched across Shaw’s face.

“Actually, I can’t.” Shaw rasps, looking across with all the wonder in the world. With eyes so hollow, they’re almost obvious. Root wants to carry her away. “But I can imagine how lovely I look.”

(There’s no time, she thinks, there’s never enough time.)

“How do I get you out?” She asks, but The Machine is buzzing in her ear. They need to leave now. “Sameen?”

Shaw nods to the door and it looks like that’s all she can manage. “The fat one outside, he’s got the keys on his belt.”

She wastes no time, as soon as Shaw had opened her mouth Root had been running backwards, pulling at the metal and leather and ripping the keys away. Stumbling, tumbling and fumbling at the locks, her hands are sweaty and shaky and she’s so, so, so worried she won’t be able to save this beautiful broken girl.

When the chains are loose, she can’t quite justify the slow manner she wraps Shaw around her shoulder, clutches at her side. There are warnings blaring in her ear, sirens in her head and she needs to get across the corridor before the agents she knows are coming round the corner.

“How’d you know?” Shaw is whispering in her ear. Loose hold and heavy heart, Root can’t answer before she’s pushing her against the wall and pleading, pleading, pleading for her to stay put. To stay quiet and safe and just wait, because she needs her to stay alive.

(Root hasn't ever needed anything more than this. Than the woman she’s trying to save and perhaps more time, to do anything and everything, and explain that this will work if she just sticks to what she’s seen and never really delicately delivered.)

 

\--

 

“I thought no one would come.” Shaw whispers, when they’re waiting, again, on the third floor. (Root’s not sure why The Machine needs them to do this, perhaps to regroup or pull Samaritan apart in these thirty minute slots.) Shaw looks up, momentarily plays shocked when she’s faced with Root’s intense glare. She says, “Actually, that’s not really true.”

“You kissed me.” Root says, because she’s thought of nothing else. Shaw is about to shrug, but Root shakes her head and mutters, “in front of everyone else, you kissed me.”

Root’s eyes roam her face, past her heavy eyes and cracked cheeks, over her swollen lips and bruised neck. When she looks back up, Shaw is watching her with a steady stare. “I thought it was goodbye.”

She shakes her head and swallows a lump and finally plucks up enough courage to reach her hand up. “Can I-?” Shaw doesn't answer for long minutes and Root always takes what she wants, so she reaches forward and so delicately brushes her thumb across Shaw’s cheeks, she wonders if she even made contact at all.

Again, she does it and softly sweeps beneath her eyes until Shaw leans in and closes them. They are, along with everything else against this woman, painted dark and haunted. Root doesn't want to think about how the bruises could’ve come about, how her face could’ve become so broken.

She looks calm when she raises her lids and her eyes flash with recognition. “Where’s Reese?” She asks, looking around like he’ll come waltzing in. “And Finch and Fusco?”

Root swallows and shrugs, twists her head to the side and tries for a smile. “Feeling unloved are we, Sameen?” She sings and watches Shaw’s eyes dance up and away. Still searching endlessly for nothing. “They’re waiting.”

There are footsteps outside, and Root is reminded that they don’t have long until they have to move again. Shaw doesn't look like she hears them at all, like she’s in a world of her own as her shaky fingers trace patterns on her bare ankle, blistered with bloody ringlets. She’s here, she’s alive and yet Root wonders if she’s lost.

She wants to be soft and gentle, and everything she’s not allowed to be. She wants to wrap Shaw up and not let go until she’s out the door and away from Samaritan’s firm grasp.

Shaw would never allow her to be that person, so she presses a finger against Shaw’s thigh until she looks up and meets her gaze.

“Have you missed me?” Root asks, for once needing the reassurance that will come with a gentle blush and throaty scoff.

Shaw waits, though, doesn't answer immediately. Her face stays neutral as she follows a path across Root’s features, and Root stays still and silent as she’s scrutinized and searched. “I've missed…” Shaw breathes in an unsteady puff of air, swallows and starts fiddling with her ankle again. “I've missed Bear.”

A sudden moment of relief passes, and Root lets out a breathy laugh, looking down and reaching to still Shaw’s incessant wondering. Instead she replaces the touch with her own finger, stroking the chapped skin around her ankle and making a path to her bare heel.

“I’m glad you didn't shave for me, Sameen.” She says, brushing the hair growing across her leg. (She’d take Sameen Shaw anyhow.)

Shaw manages to roll her eyes, pushing Root’s hand away. “Weirdly enough, I didn't have access to a razor.”

“You’d already be out, if you had.” Root whispers, looking up and catching Shaw’s eyes, because she doesn't doubt it.

Shaw nods, watching quietly as Root squints and listens to the buzzing in her ear. Time’s up, and Root’s ready to drag them both to freedom. (Except she thinks they both won’t make it.)

 

\--

 

An hour later, she’s in the lobby and, as she’s seen before, counts her three bullets left. It happens like it already has, except Shaw’s orders to run aren't quite taken so lightly. Her fingers are losing feeling, Shaw is holding on so tight, refusing to leave and she thinks, briefly, of an elevator and red button and a sacrifice.

Shaw is shaking her head, murmuring over and over and over. “I won’t let you-”

“The Machine has taken everything into consideration. She knows this is the best way, and She has a car waiting. Now go.” Root is all but pushing her away, and yet something inside her wants to do the opposite. “I’ll be behind you.”

Shaw, finally coming to her old self, rolls her eyes and grunts. “Stop acting like I’m stupid.”

(They’ll be here soon, sprinting down the corridors. Four Samaritan soldiers coming to rip her away.)

“Sameen-”

“We can do this together-”

And then she does it, in a disgusting display of déjà vu, she’s pulling Sameen Shaw against her and pressing her mouth against chapped lips. There’s a moment when Shaw probably realizes what Root is doing, and yet she tugs Root closer regardless, opens her mouth against Root’s and breathes in her bottom lip. Perhaps this moment could go on forever, were they in a simulation and an option that may never be crossed off. But this is real time, and the clock is ticking seconds and the minutes are being counted.

Breathing in a final time, she pushes away and says, so stern she’s sure it’ll leave a mark, “Sameen, you need to leave. Now. Or else you’ll kill me.” With a slight push, Shaw looks bewildered, tripping away and Root wants to treasure this, wants to finally thank her God for making Sameen Shaw finally, finally follow orders.

With unsteady footsteps echoing behind, it happens as it should. One, two, three down and then it’s useless. A jittery shot and she’s out of breath and breathless and stumbling for a place. Her hand is wobbly as it falls to her side. (She wants to turn around; she wants to see Shaw live.) Breathe, she reminds herself, wincing from the pain and trying to remember if the blood had poured out this fast the first time.

As she drops her gun she almost feels her life falling with it, clattering to the ground and breaking as it skids to a halt. (She wants to turn around.) Staggering forward, she sweeps the young man to the ground, tries to avoid the second shot and fails. She lodges a bullet in his head instead and tries not to cry.

(She wants to turn around.)

Her eyes begin to drift, her fingers soak in the liquid coating her skin, flooding the floor and staining her clothes. Root can’t keep her head up, her lids up, her hopes flying along with them. Except, she got out. Shaw got out. Turning, as best she can, she wants to see Shaw’s car speeding away, a cursed lamppost and a flashing camera whispering goodbye as it watches from across the street.

Drifting so gently in and out of consciousness, she wants to see everything and anything, as she turns and squints. The light’s flickering above her and a shadow looms over.

“Your stupid Machine didn’t count on me.” Shaw whispers, voice still rough from her time in the torture room. She leans in and hooks her hands beneath Root’s shoulder.

(She’s dreaming, she thinks, of an angel she’s wanted for so long.)

Root, drifting in and out of consciousness, can’t quiet reach up high enough to touch Shaw’s face. Instead she murmurs something she thinks is probably unintelligible and watches Shaw roll her eyes and grunt as she pulls her away from the wet marble floors and the boy with an exploded temple.

“Come on, Root.” Shaw is saying, pulling her away, away, away. Dragging her out of the building she’s been in thousands of times and yet only once, through the double doors and onto the gravel. “The car is waiting.”

 

\--

 

The car, as it happens, holds the three people Root hadn’t expected to see on this mission.

Harold’s eyes are wide when he looks at them both, and Root is almost thankful she’s managed to stay conscious long enough to see his astonished face, though it turns quickly to panic and concern as Reese and Shaw shut the door behind her. “What happened?” He’s asking, over and over. Like the answer will somehow rectify the situation.

Fusco swerves the car in his effort to see behind him. “What’s Cuckoo done now?” He’s yelling and pressing down the horn, muttering insults under his breath. He’s ignored, and Reese is looking round to Harold expectantly.

“Pass me the medical box, Finch.” Reese is stretching out his hand, looking up momentarily across the car. “Nice to see you, Shaw.” He says, and then pulls open the first aid kit.

(She’ll die. She’ll die in the arms of Sameen Shaw with her heavy glare staring down. Root can’t look away.)

“Typical.” Shaw says, holding a shaky hand covered in cuts, scabs and bruises webbing out forever. “She goes in to save me and still ends up being the center of attention.”

There’s static in her ear, and for the first time her Machine can finally label the mission complete.

Bleeding out against a broken woman in the back of a car filled with familiar assets, she can’t think of a better outcome. She remembers bleeding out against every floor in the building, dying alone and failed. This doesn't feel lonely, with Shaw pressing bandages against her skin and Reese hovering over with a pair of tweezers.

(They've pulled her back from bleeding and broken before. They’ll do it again.)

“Keep your eyes open, Root.” Sameen Shaw says, running a thumb across her brow. And she does.

 

\--


End file.
